


we're all stories, in the end

by princessoftheworlds



Series: It's not a crime to love what you cannot explain [31]
Category: Doctor Who (2005), The Originals (TV), The Vampire Diaries (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Doctor Who Fusion, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-10
Updated: 2019-10-10
Packaged: 2020-12-07 16:51:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,882
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20979197
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/princessoftheworlds/pseuds/princessoftheworlds
Summary: Walking down the aisle on her wedding day, Caroline finds herself suddenly transported aboard a strange blue police box with an eccentric man who calls himself the Doctor, and then everything Caroline's ever known turns upside down. One year later, after Caroline has chased him all over London, the Doctor returns and offers to show her the stars, the universe, all of time and space itself.





	we're all stories, in the end

“I just want a mate,” the Doctor says, finishing off his rattling plea to invite Caroline to travel with him on his blue police box of a TARDIS that she still can’t believe. He glances up at her with those stormy eyes that are simultaneously a maniac intense but also unbelievably sad.

_I want to mate_ is what Caroline, high on adrenaline, shock, and relief from the last ten minutes, hears.

Her eyebrows raise in alarm, and quickly, she takes a step back, retreating further inside the safety of the TARDIS. “You’re not mating with me, _sunshine_!” she calls back, voice rising several octaves in panic until even she winces from her own shrillness. She keeps a steady eye on the Doctor.

The Doctor balks, a flare of something unreadable running through those sad eyes. “_A mate_,” he clarifies far too quickly. “I just want _a mate_. A friend.” He presses his lips together so tightly that they turn white.

Lifting her head high in the air, brushing blond curls over her shoulder, she tells him, “Well, just as well. I’m not having any of that nonsense.” She sniffs, keeping her tone light and good-natured. “I have a strict no-aliens rule.”

“There we are, then,” the Doctor retorts, smirking slightly. He seems to not have taken offense at Caroline’s response. “Okay.”

“I can come then?” she asks, straightening up. She hopes too much of her excitement hasn’t leaked into her tone.

“Yeah. Of course,” he tells her. “Course you can. I’d love that.”

* * *

Let’s back up a minute.

It’s two years ago, and it’s supposed to be the happiest day of Caroline Forbes’s life. She’s getting married to Matt Donovan, the head of HR and the only other American in the firm where she worked as a temp. On her first day, he brought her coffee, and she’s been in love ever since.

One minute, she’s walking down the wedding aisle, the lace of her veil drifting behind her as she beams at Matt and the guests, and the next, she’s on a battered-looking spaceship with a drawling Brit dressed like a hipster who waves around a silver stick he calls a sonic screwdriver when he’s not smirking cockily.

He brings her to her wedding, but she’s missed the actual ceremony, and her friends and Matt have gone on to the reception without her. Then Caroline, Matt, and the man who insists on being called the Doctor are racing to the firm.

Suddenly, there’s a giant spider-alien-creature the Doctor calls the Empress of the Racnoss, and turns out Matt is not who she thought he was.

“He’s been poisoning you,” the Doctor tells her, and though she practically just met him, she quivers at the kindness in his tone and eyes. “With the coffees. One every day.”

“No, no, no, no,” Caroline says numbly, shaking her head in denial. “That can’t be true.” But nonetheless, she watches mutely as a smirking Matt steps towards the Empress. “Tell me it’s not true, Matt.”

Matt rolls his eyes. “God, she’s so thick,” he tells the Doctor, ignoring Caroline’s pleas. “Months I’ve had to put up with her. Months!” He throws his hands up in frustration. “She’ll keep talking and talking your head off. I think I’ve lost years off my life trying to figure out how to shut her up.”

Whimpering, Caroline stumbles backwards, vision starting to blur from the tears that burn her eyes. Dazed, she can’t even acknowledge the Empress, instead pressing into the Doctor’s side who reaches out to steady her. “No, no, no, no.”

The coffee Matt brought on her first day of work. She thought it was him being kind to the uncertain new temp. It was him setting the first step of his plan in motion.

“There were particles in the coffee, Huon energy particles,” the Doctor murmurs to her. “Matt and the Empress probably intended to use you as some kind of beacon for a portal to their home world. Instead, when they activated those particles, you were drawn to the nearest source of those particles, which happened to be the TARDIS.”

The Empress hisses. “But now, you are here,” she snarls. “We will use you to open the portal and bring my children through. We will rule this desolate world of yours.”

“And I will be by your side as your consort,” Matt says, stepping forward to gaze adoringly at the Empress. He smiles at her. “It will be as everything was intended to be. You, my Empress, and your children. We will be together.”

Rearing on her feet, the Empress laughs, high and cold. “Oh, you foolish human. You were never by my side. You were always a pawn.” And with a careless swipe of her one of her eight legs, she knocks Matt off the platform, and he tumbles down to the ground with a single scream, neck snapping with a sickening snap.

Everything blurs around Caroline. Still reeling from the heartbreak and Matt’s betrayal, Caroline can barely process the blasts from the bombs the Doctor planted around the room until the Empress’s screaming reaches her ears.

Amongst the fire and chaos, dirty water from the Thames flooding in and staining Caroline’s wedding dress, she sees the first streak of a darker side to the Doctor. The same man who made sarcastic remarks and name-dropped figures from Caroline’s old history textbooks while hailing her a cab has his lips set into a harsh line, eyes glinting cruelly as he watches the Empress’s spider children drown and die. The Empress’s pained screeches reach a higher pitch.

“Doctor,” Caroline cries, and the man jerks like a marionette whose strings have been cut, “you can stop now!”

The Doctor’s handsome features contort in terror, but there is no time for his moral crisis. He and Caroline are darting into the TARDIS as the building explodes behind them.

When they arrive outside Caroline’s apartment building, she stumbles out of the impossible police box, hair in disarray and expensive gown undeniably ruined. The Doctor invites her to travel with him, but heart weighing heavy with sorrow and exhausted to the point of collapse, she declines.

“Don’t travel alone,” she tells him. “Find someone. I think sometimes you need someone to stop you.” She hates to think of what this handsome stranger who whizzes through the universe in his bigger-on-the-inside box could be capable of on a bad day.

Once Caroline’s had time to process the events of what was supposed to be her wedding day, she tries to move on. She gets another temp job but quits her second month. She tries to travel through Egypt, but the structure of the tour she’s booked drains her enthusiasm. Finally, under the worried and anxious gazes of her friends who still don’t know what truly happened, she begins dating another American friend, a dark-haired sarcastic man named Tyler. She is happy briefly, even if she expects everything Tyler to say to be said in an English accent and to reference events before her birth and worlds beyond her own.

A year passes, and with everything still inexplicably unstable in her life, Caroline regrets telling the Doctor no. She begins to drive across London and nearby towns, following stories and sightings of the strangest things, trying to find him. If one day with the Doctor was as chaotic as it had been, he’s bound to pop around eventually, and Caroline actually manages to help some of the people she meets.

The months fly by, and she devotes herself to her search for the Doctor.

“I feel like I don’t even know who you are anymore,” Tyler tells her after they’ve been dating for eight months. “You’re always running, and no one in your life seems to know what you’re looking for.”

He breaks up with her two months later, and she doesn’t get the chance to tell him _who_ she was looking for, not _what_.

Then she finds the Doctor.

* * *

They start off slow, at least according to the Doctor. He takes her to a Viking village at least a thousand years before she will be born. There’s a giant wolf the Doctor claims to be an alien roaming through the woods and preying on villagers; they arrive in the aftermath of the wolf-alien’s latest victim - a young boy named Henrik, a death which they learn about upon stumbling into his elder sister.

She comes out of nowhere with an angry roar. One moment the Doctor and Caroline are kneeling down besides a patch of grass, studying the trampled grass and torn tree roots as the Doctor scans them with his sonic screwdriver.

The next moment, the Doctor is pinned against a tree, Caroline hesitantly behind his side, as they gaze back at their attacker, stunned.

“Name yourself,” the girl says fiercely, her eyes - sharing the same stormy intensity as the Doctor’s - not wavering from. She leans forward, the blade of her sword pressing further into the sensitive skin of the Doctor’s throat. “Name yourself and your companion, and drop your weapon.”

Despite wanting to protest her title as the Doctor’s companion, Caroline gulps nervously. She eyes the girl; she doesn’t think that the Doctor being alien will prevent him from dying via a slit throat.

“Oi!” The Doctor’s own gaze travels from the girl’s sword to his sonic screwdriver, held adjacent to his side and still glowing. “It’s not a weapon. It’s a sonic screwdriver.” He sighs. “It’s a tool.”

“I don’t think she cares about that, Doctor,” Caroline hisses to him. Glancing back at the girl, she attempts a kind smile. “I apologize for my friend. His name is the Doctor. My name is Caroline. Have you seen a giant wolf around?” Her smile widens.

Finally dropping his screwdriver and slipping it back in his pocket as the girl shifts her grip on her sword, the Doctor rolls his eyes. “It’s not a wolf. It’s a-”

“For her and everyone else who wouldn’t understand you being a time-travelling alien, it’s a wolf.” Caroline sighs, turning back to the girl who has lowered her blade, watching them in bewilderment but also suspicion. “What’s your name?”

“Rebekah,” she replies, ever so cautious. “Have you been hunting the beast? The wolf that slaughtered my brother into pieces?”

Caroline finally gets a good glance at Rebekah as the girl slips the sword through the sheath hanging by her side. She can’t be older than seventeen with sharp cheekbones, a wide forehead, and hair - several shades lighter than Caroline’s - braided back, but those eyes - with their strange resemblance to the Doctor’s in both color and hauntedness, her sword, and her stained dress say otherwise. This is a girl accustomed to violence and war, and Caroline wonders what she’ll do when she finds her beast.

“Yes,” the Doctor tells her. “Well…we aren’t so much hunting him as we are looking for him, but we’ll help you find him.”

As they follow Rebekah further into the woods, Caroline turns to the Doctor. “Do you usually agree to help strangers in the woods who hold swords to your throat?” She bites her lip. “Is that how you get into half the trouble you’ve told me about?”

“Look at her,” the Doctor hisses back. “She’s a child. She’s frightened. She failed in her duty to protect her brother, and she doesn’t want the same to happen to her family and village.”

_He couldn’t just stand there and watch children cry_, Caroline realizes, but that’s the last rational thought she’s able to have for a while, because it turns out the wolf-alien that they’ve been hunting has been hunting them instead, and suddenly, they’re sprinting through the trees, a maniac smile stuck to the Doctor’s lips. It seems that this is everyday for the Doctor, because they’d been running on her wedding day too, at a pace too unreasonable for a girl wearing a silk gown and heels.

Under the Doctor’s guidance, Rebekah and a few of her villager friends manage to lure the wolf into a giant pit using some raw meat, Caroline failing to see what makes this wolf alien through all his wolfiness. Then the Doctor, using his sonic screwdriver, identifies it as an escaped creature from a planet half-way across the universe.

He frowns. “It shouldn’t be here,” he says as he uses his screwdriver to scan the wolf’s paw prints surrounding the pit. Turning to Caroline, he presses his lips together. “From what I can trace, it came to Earth via a crashed spaceship and lay dormant until something awoke it recently.”

But they don’t have time to figure it out, because quickly, the wolf is leaping forward from its prison, tearing several of Rebekah’s friends with its claws. Then it lunges forward for the Doctor, and someone screams.

It might be Rebekah or it might be Caroline, but next, there’s a mighty howl. When the chaos and dust clears, the wolf lays dead, a sword driven through its belly. The Doctor, a man who Caroline has heard preach pacifism and mercy, doesn’t protest at the beast’s fate, because he’s busy on his knees, bowed forward.

Bewildered, Caroline only has to step forward to realize that he’s cradling Rebekah’s body, her front stained with blood and mangled, though the Doctor shields the on-lookers from seeing the worst of the damage.

“Why did you do that, you stupid girl?” he asks Rebekah, voice low and thick with emotion. His face is wan, his expression strangled and tight. “Why did you do that, Bekah? You had so much life to live. I’m a stupid old man. I’ve lived long enough; I have life to spare. Why did you step in front of me?”

“I had to protect someone,” Rebekah rasps, eyes going glassy. There is a harsh gurgle deep in her chest as she coughs, blood staining the corners of her mouth. “I couldn’t protect Henrik, but I could save you.”

“You were brave, Rebekah,” the Doctor tells the girl, a suspicious wet sheen to his eyes. “That’s the trait of all elder sisters. They will always be brave for their younger siblings.” He sniffles. “To be brave...it’s a rule I swear by. To never be cruel, to never be cowardly, and above all, to never eat pears.”

“What’s a pear?” Rebekah attempts to ask, but her question only ends in a bloody gurgle.

“Hush.” The Doctor pulls her body closer to him, hugging Rebekah to her chest. Soothingly, he brushes hair, dark and sticky, from her forehead. “It’s a nasty fruit. You would never like it.”

Tears rolling down her cheeks, Caroline laughs wetly, stepping closer to the Doctor. She kneels down and places a hand on his shoulder, and he glances up in acknowledgment. “He’s right,” Caroline tells Rebekah. “You were brave. If I had one ounce of your courage when I was your age, I could have made more of my life.”

“Thank you.” The light in Rebekah’s eyes is quickly disappearing into darkness, but she presses her lips into a faint smile. “Keep travelling for me, Doctor and his dear Caroline. Save more lives. Help save other sisters and their younger brothers.”

* * *

They stay for the funeral.

Rebekah’s father, a stocky man with her fine blond hair, gifts them small wooden horses she carved and refuses to take them back despite Caroline’s protests.

When the ceremony is over, the Doctor and Caroline take their farewells and walk back through the woods to the TARDIS. Caroline keeps eyeing the Doctor whose gaze has been distant for several hours now. Just as she intends to ask if he’s alright, her feet stumble to a stop, and she gasps loudly.

Immediately, the Doctor stiffens, jumping into a defensive stance as his hand flies to his sonic screwdriver. “What’s wrong?” he asks. He glances at Caroline who has gone pale.

Raising a shaky hand, Caroline points to the familiar river that can be seen through the gap in the trees. Abruptly, she realizes that she recognizes these patches of woods, the structure of some of this land. It’s a thousand years too early to tell for sure, but Caroline can be nearly certain that in nine-hundred-and-ninety years, she and Elena and Bonnie will run through these trees as children.

“This is my home,” she whispers. “Or at least it will be.”

The Doctor’s brow furrows. “I don’t get it.”

“I grew up here,” Caroline says, gesturing wildly to the trees all around her. “I’ve played in these woods.” She nods towards the river. “There’s not a bridge there right now, but in a thousand years, there will be. My friend’s car will skid across the bridge and fall into the river, and her parents will drown.” She shudders. “This will be my home. Mystic Falls, Virginia.”

Head tilted, the Doctor listens intently. When Caroline’s finished, he lifts his sonic screwdriver to scan the air. He hums. “You’re right,” he tells her. “This will be Mystic Falls. In a thousand years.” He sneaks a glance at Caroline. “Are you alright?”

Everything is suddenly too much for her to process right now, too loud, too bright, too chaotic. She shudders again. “Can we get back to the TARDIS?” she asks.

And if, once they return to the TARDIS, she breaks down, crying both out of confusion and for Rebekah, the Doctor doesn’t mention it.

* * *

After that eventful and emotional first trip, the Doctor tries again, and they visit London in 1953 for Queen Elizabeth’s coronation. The Doctor changes out of his trademark Henley, paint-stained jeans, and dusty combat boots and into a sharp suit, and Caroline tries a pretty dress with a swing skirt on for size.

The Doctor insists on keeping his sonic screwdriver and something he calls psychic paper however.

Their night is joyful as they watch the grainy image of the young queen on an old television set. Then someone brings out a bottle of champagne and small snacks. Caroline gets tipsy and dances with the Doctor to music her grandfather must have liked, and there’s too many Union Jacks everywhere. At some point, there’s an odd explosion of electrical sparks in the nighttime sky that someone claims is from a local television station. The Doctor eyes it suspiciously but says nothing, even when a man runs by and screams about televisions stealing faces.

It’s a wonderful experience, but when Caroline and the Doctor walk down the street to the TARDIS, hands interlinked and swinging together, Caroline can’t keep her thoughts from drifting to Rebekah. A sudden stab of sadness runs through her.

“How do you deal with it so well?” she asks, and when he looks at her for clarification, she sighs. “With death, I mean? I can’t stop thinking of Rebekah, of how much live she had left to live.”

The Doctor shrugs. “Would you believe that I’m used to it? That I’m older than I look?”

“Doctor,” Caroline says more seriously, and he turns to face her, lips quirked into a strange melancholic smile.

“I have seen much of death,” he tells her. “I have stepped hand-in-hand, side-by-side with it. No one can ever become accustomed to death, not when it is such a terrible thing.” Now, he sighs. “Yet I have seen thousands and thousands of people, and I have seen many of them die, some tragically, some at peace and surrounded by loved ones. Yes, it hurts when someone is taken before their time, but that’s life.” His smile becomes bitter. “I try to save as many lives as I can, but I don’t always succeed.”

Caroline blinks, taken aback. There is no simple response to what the Doctor has admitted. Finally, she nods. “You weren’t lying when you told Rebekah that you’re a stupid old man.”

“Pardon?” He gazes at her, bewildered.

“Even if you don’t always succeed, the fact that you try is enough,” she says faintly. “We must keep trying to save lives. For Rebekah, we must try to be brave.”

The Doctor stops in his tracks and gapes slightly at her. “You humans,” he breathes out in amazement. “There is so much potential to all of you. So much hope, so much love. That’s why I adore your species.” He laughs. “You are a shining beacon of humanity. You, Caroline Forbes, you’re strong, beautiful, full of light. I chose you well as a companion.”

“Hey,” Caroline retorts. “You didn’t choose anyone, buddy. I travelled across the city looking for you. I _chose _you.”

“Fair enough.”

* * *

“Why did you have to refer to the Sontarans as a bunch of potato-heads?” the Doctor hisses, frustration leaking into his tone, ducked down behind a door frame as blasts of plasma fly over their head. “Now they won’t stop shooting at us!”

On the other side of the door frame, Caroline spreads her hands helplessly, wincing as the movement puts pressure on her aching knees and feet. They’ve run far more than expected this trip, even for the Doctor and Caroline’s standards, and her flats were not a good choice for today. “Because that’s what they look like!” She sighs. “It was a joke. How was I to know that they weren’t a humorous bunch?”

The Doctor, poised with his sonic screwdriver by his side, facepalms. “The Sontarans are clone warriors. They’ll take anything as a declaration of war.” He shifts in his crouch, peering around the door frame, only to jerk back suddenly when plasma blasts part of the wall into rubble mere inches from where his head had been. “Oi,” he says to himself. “That could have been my nose.” Then he turns his maniac gaze back to Caroline, and she anxiously notices that despite the flurry of emotions in his eyes, fury is not one of them. He doesn’t truly seem to blame her, but it doesn’t stop him from continuing, “It’s rule number one. Don’t insult the aliens.”

“You’re an alien!” Caroline retorts. “Besides, you said rule one was don’t wander off. And you’re the one who went to view a historical exhibit and left me alone.” She affects an English accent and drops her voice several octaves, “_Three moons and pink seas! It’s perfect for a visit to your first planet, love.”_ She returns to her normal voice. “You didn’t mention the warrior potatoes.”

“Stop calling them potatoes, love,” the Doctor says, but now, he’s rolling his eyes. “Besides, that’s not what I sound like.” He glances over the Sontarans who are quickly settling into battle formation. “Caroline.”

“Yes, Doctor?”

“One more thing...run!”

When they finally stumble into the TARDIS, Caroline moves to barricade the doors, and the Doctor dives for the console, throwing various switches and pulling several levers until the familiar _whoorp-whoorp _sound of the ship is heard as she dematerializes.

“Next time,” Caroline says, panting as she settles against the railing and turns to face the Doctor, “we’re just staying on Earth.”

“Hey,” the Doctor says, pouting, eyes alit with frantic energy, “that was just _one _planet. And that’s not to say that Earth isn’t plenty danger. In fact, there was this one time Robin Hood-”

“Dared you to a duel and you fought back with a spoon?” Caroline asks, cocking an eyebrow. “You keep forgetting that you don’t need to tell that story. _I was there_.”

The Doctor scratches at his chin. Caroline doesn’t know how often aliens need to shave, because he’s been growing a bit of a stubbly shadow. She likes it; she thinks it makes him look more dashing, but she won’t ever tell him that. “I could have sworn it was with Cami…” he murmurs to himself.

“Who’s Cami?” Caroline asks curiously. It’s the first she’s heard mention of the name.

He glances up suddenly, face slack. “Just a girl I once knew.” His lips press together tightly. “You would have liked her.”

Then he says no more.

* * *

They go to a ball in eighteenth century France, and Caroline dances with a prince who takes out to a balcony in Versailles and kisses her below the round full moon.

When she returns to the TARDIS, the Doctor watches her with dark eyes. “Enjoy your time with the prince?” he asks, voice tight.

“Yes,” Caroline replies wistfully, sighing. She doesn’t notice how his jaw tightens. “He was wonderful. Handsome. A real gentleman.” Smiling, she twirls, the blue skirts of her ballgown flaring out wide, still caught up in the romance and the magic of her evening. “Every girl just wants to be told they are beautiful by a prince.” Her smile turns giddy, her eyes widening with excitement. “An actual prince!”

“What,” the Doctor drawls, cocking his eyebrows. “A dashing time-traveller who takes you away in his TARDIS not enough for you?” He reaches over to flip a few switches on the TARDIS console.

Turning to focus her gaze on the Doctor, Caroline giggles, still euphoric. “You didn’t take me dancing,” she teases him, toeing off her elaborate, old-fashioned heels before leaning down to pick them up, dangling them by her side. “Besides, I don’t even think you can dance.”

The Doctor rolls his eyes. “Have you ever bothered asking, love?” He takes a step forward, squaring his shoulders. “I’ll have you know that I can dance better than that prince of yours,” he muses. “One face of mine even won an intergalactic dance competition in the fifty-second century.”

Biting her lip, Caroline doesn’t bother asking about his face comment. The Doctor will often do that, often say odd things about his past like they’re common fact but never elaborate on them. Instead, she grins toothily. “I’m sure you did.”

“We’re still talking about sex, right?”

Caroline blinks slowly. She wasn’t expecting that. “Well, that’s not what the prince and I did, but sure.”

The Doctor chuckles, turning his face upwards. Under the TARDIS lights, with his eyes twinkling with amusement and his lips stretched into a wide smile, he looks incredibly handsome, all the years and shadows stripped away from his face.

Caroline finds her mouth suddenly dry, and she’s forced to look again. Sometimes she can’t stand next to the Doctor, not when her skin prickles and every hair on her body stands on edge. His pure presence burns as bright as time itself.

In all the time Caroline’s been travelling with him, he’s made countless implications about being older than he looks, and not for the first time, she wonders how old he is, how many people - human and otherwise - he’s met and seen die, loved and lost. How many Camis there’d been for him.

She wonders if he’ll ever tell her about Cami, how he met her, what happened to her. Why he was travelling alone when Caroline met him. She’s under no allusions that she was the first companion he ever travelled with like this. She wonders how many of the same places he’s taken her that he took the others.

“You alright?” the Doctor asks abruptly, and Caroline tears her gaze away, blushing fiercely as she ducks her head to look at one of the coral structures that line the TARDIS.

“Never better,” she says, twirling again, bare feet padding against the metal floor. She ignores her growing desire to step towards the Doctor and kiss him.

_I could love him_, she thinks. _I could love him in a way I never have loved anyone before_. Not Matt, not Tyler, not even her own parents.

***

He takes her to the beginning of the universe.

They float through the empty blackness in the TARDIS, doors pushed open wide as Caroline and the Doctor cling to either side of the entrance. With wide eyes and legs as weak as a lamb, Caroline watches as sudden light blooms across the darkness.

It’s bright and beautiful, the flare of many colors, too brilliant and flashing for any single shade to be identified. Caroline feels trails of wetness down her cheeks before she realizes that she’s crying silently.

“Is everything alright?” the Doctor asks, reaching his hand out for her. He gently traces fingers over her jaw, cheeks, and temples, brushing a thumb over her lips and wiping away tears. His touch is tender and delicate.

“Yeah,” she gasps, all high-pitched and breathy. “It’s so beautiful. I didn’t expect it to be so beautiful.” She sighs. “I didn’t even expect to be able to see it.”

“We shouldn’t be able to,” the Doctor confesses. “Time is a tangled, complex thing, but we’re lucky today. The TARDIS was actually allowed us to come out here.” He smiles. “She’s taken a liking to you.”

The idea of a sentient ship taking a liking to Caroline used to be a strange concept, something ludicrous, but instead, it warms her heart. She glances down, blushing, and she brushes hair out of her eyes.

Clinging to the edge of the TARDIS entrance, the Doctor extends his reach, careful to keep his grip on the wood. If he lets go, he’ll float off into the newly-created universe and certain death. Instead, he slowly tilts Caroline’s chin and leans down, pressing his lips to hers.

In that moment of their kiss, when it’s just the two of them and space, Caroline’s heart beats slowly, steadily.

Outside the TARDIS, the universe is birthed.

**Author's Note:**

> Find me on tumblr [here](http://princess-of-the-worlds.tumblr.com/) or on Twitter [here](https://twitter.com/rajkumarinik) to let me know how much you liked this fic or request a prompt.


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